Our grant recipients and their participants are at the heart of our mission. While our focus is now exclusively on CoGen projects, we are very proud of the projects described below that Innovation 80 funded prior to CoGen, in some cases involving organizations who have become CoGen grantees. Here are some of the comments that have been made about our past grantee’s programs:
““The communication and openness to ideas from the whole Innovation 80 team is a breath of fresh air.””
“The single most unique aspect of Innovation 80 is their enthusiasm for and investment in new ideas. Innovation 80 is a builder of programming and, as their name implies, a true advocate for innovative programming.”
“Innovation 80 has been a constant source of inspiration to the ChiArts Foundation… They bring a sense of excitement and fun to changing things in the Chicago art community for the better.”
“They are a one-of-a-kind fund. Innovation 80 is in regular contact with its grantees, finding creative ways to strengthen the grantor-grantee relationship that goes well beyond financial support.”
2023 Grantees
Awakenings
Awakenings uses the arts to engage and promote healing in survivors of sexual violence. Participants have found that, in the setting of art classes, the sharing of experiences and understandings has enhanced their abilities to process, claim their own voices and move forward from trauma. In the Awakenings/Innovation 80 Healing Arts Program participants will make art together over a 6-month period.
Bandwith
BandWith provides exceptional music programs to the underserved community of East Garfield Park. Its Innovation 80 project will begin a choral program, focusing on instruction and performance to build on the pilot the organization conducted last summer. BandWith partners with Chicago West Music, an Innovation 80 2022 grantee that draws participants from a wider geographic area.
Chicago Arts and Music Project
Chicago Arts and Music Project (CAMP) will expand its string instrument program, which has been engaging 3rd to 5th graders in underserved Chicago schools. Their advanced students have had difficulty competing against others their age who were able to begin lessons earlier. The Innovation 80 Project, Fiddlesticks, will be a Suzuki string program for 1st and 2nd graders.
Chicago Mobile Makers
Chicago Mobile Makers seeks to open the field of architecture to youth of color. Its design workshops encourage disadvantaged youth (ages 8 to 18) to become change-makers in their own communities and build life-long design skills. The Innovation 80 project, Design for Change, will be an after-school program in Humboldt Park for middle- and high-school-aged students.
Chicago Poetry Center
Chicago Poetry Center operates through Chicago Public Schools to connect people with poetry, poets with communities, and foster creativity and reflection. The Innovation 80 Early Reader Pilot Program will serve two schools in the underserved communities of Bronzeville and Bedford Park to develop a curriculum that will engage pre-readers with poetry.
FreshLens Chicago
FreshLens teaches life skills through photography to teens from underserved communities. FreshLens students’ photographs now adorn Innovation 80’s website pages. FreshLens also runs an advanced course in event photography, which Innovation 80 supports by funding graduates to photograph events held by other Innovation 80 grantees who wish to take advantage of this offer.
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot features a community museum housed in a shipping container, intended as a spark to revitalize North Lawndale. Its Innovation 80 project [Your Exhibit Here] will demonstrate the impact local museums can have on their communities by teaching a group of local youth museum curation principles and, with community involvement, creating an exhibition.
Palenque LSNA
Palenque LSNA serves Northwest side neighborhoods using Latinx and immigrant traditions in arts, culture, and design to reconnect its Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Immigrant communities in the face of rapid gentrification and displacement. Innovation 80 is helping to fund three mosaics by Greenstar Movement in and around Logan Square that will foster pride and belonging for these communities.
The Simple Good
The Simple Good explores the meaning of “good” through art and discussion. Working with grades 3 to 12 in Chicago Public Schools, it aims to empower youth to bring positivity into their communities. The project with Innovation 80 inaugurates a pilot program to expand the concept of “the simple good” to younger children, developing a curriculum to engage first graders.
Sukkah Design Festival
The Sukkah Design Festival pairs three North Lawndale community organizations with three architect / designers, each team to design and build an innovative sukkah (an outdoor room erected for the Jewish harvest festival Sukkot). Participants gain "design literacy," a sense of how spaces can be purposefully created. Each organization will own and repurpose its sukkah to use in its mission.
2022 Grantees
Artists Breaking Limits and Expectations
ABLE (Artist Breaking Limits and Expectations) uses theater to engage people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities. The organization has had a wait list for participants and their project will start “In the Wings” that will give those on the waitlist an introduction and chance to begin learning before there are openings in the company program.
America Scores Chicago
America Scores Chicago will extend their program, Literacy in Action, into summer. They teach poetry and soccer to ages K through 8th grade. They have writing coaches and soccer coaches and Innovation 80’s grant will fund a teaching artist to help the children turn their poetry (including hip hop) into some form of visual art.
Albany Park Theater Project
APTP (Albany Park Theater Project) trains youth from Albany Park to create professional-quality plays with themes relevant to their lives. Two years of interviews of local residents will inform a production that explores immigration experiences. Actors will interact with audiences through four apartments (stages) created in a warehouse.
Chicago West Community Music Center
CWCMC (Chicago West Community Music Center) is one of our few minority-led organizations. They are committed to providing high quality music education. Their string instruction has included piano and harp and they have taken their orchestra to perform abroad. Innovation 80’s grant will fund a pilot “Laptop Orchestra” program to teach making music by computers.
Free Street Theater
Free Street Theater has two centers 57 blocks apart on Ashland Ave: one in Pulaski Park and one in Back of the Yards. Online this year, the two collaborated. “57 Blocks” will continue this collaboration, performing on a bus they are acquiring that will travel between the centers, bringing theater to audiences in these neighborhoods.
Global Girls
Global Girls Inc. brings programs that engage students in stories, dance and singing for females of color, ages 5 to 18. Innovation 80 will fund a pilot program, “My First Show,” which will engage very young children in five South Side daycare centers. The focus is on developing self-confidence, the ability to present before an audience, and pride in who they are.
Intonation Music
Intonation Music partners with 6 public schools in Bronzeville, grades 3-12, with programs year-round. Curriculum includes pop music and digital music making. Their instructor to student ratio is 1:6 and students play in 12-person bands. The Innovation 80 grant will allow them to expand into two more schools.
Music in Urban Schools Inspiring Change
MUSIC (Music in Urban Schools Inspiring Change) will partner with a local church in North Lawndale, which will provide space for a new Suzuki violin program for 6- to 8-year olds. MUSIC just finished its 5-year term supported by Springboard, which helps grow small start-ups engaging underserved populations. Innovation 80 partners with Springboard.
Snow City Arts
Snow City Arts brings arts to children in hospitals (and back at home if they cannot yet go back to school upon discharge). Innovation 80’s support will allow them to provide this service for the pediatric and burns units at Cook County Hospital, which has recognized the need and has asked Snow City to provide.
Theatre Y
Theatre Y is an innovative theatre company in process of moving into North Lawndale, with plans to build a community center for the arts there. Innovation 80 will fund a pilot puppetry program designed by a nationally-known puppeteer and led by a local community organizer. It will engage local youth for a high-quality production.
2021 Grantees
Changing Worlds
Changing Worlds brings high-quality music programing to Ashe Elementary, an under-resourced CPS school on Chicago’s West Side. Innovation 80 funding will allow Changing Worlds to expand its model to reach deeper and broader by including grades 3 through 5, giving its students an uninterrupted K-8 music curriculum. The school’s principal has requested this expansion and has championed this program. Changing Worlds also offers summer and out-of-school opportunities for upper-grade students, and family online workshops to engage parents.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble uses a wide variety of arts—visual arts, dance, theatre and music—to engage participants. Innovation 80’s grant is for Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble to develop a comprehensive curriculum for early childhood, ages 3-7, from PreK through 1st grade. The program’s goal is to determine what concepts and skills can be taught at each age level and to develop the tools which will prepare teaching artists to teach all arts. The curriculum will foster an early appreciation for the arts, with a focus on social/emotional learning, reading and literacy.
CircEsteem
CircEsteem serves youths across all backgrounds and identities, fostering self-esteem and mutual respect through the practice and performance of circus arts. CircEsteem also provides tutors to help participants with homework and has a stellar graduation rate. The program creates opportunities for youth to find commonalities, to experience their resilience, and to reimagine the role youth can play in affecting social change and in shaping the future of Chicago. The Innovation 80 Grant will expand this program to Hefferan Elementary an under-served CPS school on the West Side of Chicago.
Green Star Movement
Green Star Movement works with an inter-generational population—youth, adults and communities—to design and realize public art. Its mission is to build teamwork, self-esteem, and civic engagement while fostering a sense of identity and revitalizing urban neighborhoods. Through the mosaic murals they create, participants connect to each other and experience ownership of public spaces. Innovation 80 funding will support the design and execution of a mural by an inter-generational group of participants in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.
Ignition Community Glass
Ignition Community Glass uses the transformative power of glass arts to help youth from under-resourced communities in Chicago develop life skills. It provides a safe environment for students to experiment while learning the basics of this art form. Its programs foster self-esteem, self-confidence, and resilience, and emphasize the importance of communication and trust as participants work together in pairs and groups. ICG will collaborate with Storycatchers Theatre to run an 8-week summer course for Storycatchers participants, who will collectively create a glass quilt mural to be installed at the Storycatchers facility.
ReinventAbility
ReinventAbility improves the lives of people with disabilities by promoting and facilitating engagement and inclusion. Its programs expand the horizons of dance to include disabled individuals and their families, as fully engaged audience members, in classes, and onstage. Innovation 80’s grant will fund development of Dancing With Disability, a program for grades K - 12 for South and West Side Chicago schools. Dance participation serves to dispel negative attitudes that limit opportunities of people with disabilities. It aims to increase public understanding, acceptance and inclusion.
SitStayRead
SitStayRead advances children’s literacy skills in under-served communities by connecting children in grades K-3 with trained literacy volunteers and Certified Reading Assistance Dogs. Its curriculum develops reading and writing skills and an appreciation of and connection with animals. By bringing non-judgmental dogs and supportive volunteers into classrooms the program transforms the learning environment. Innovation 80’s funding will create packets that include books (in English and Spanish) and supplies for children to use during the Covid-19 period and beyond.
StoryCatchers
Storycatchers has used a trauma-informed methodology to create Changing Voices, an 8-month performing arts jobs program for youth, ages 17-24, recently released from detention. Changing Voices combines artistic expression with social-emotional learning to prepare youth for successful re-entry. Working one-on-one with teaching artists, youth author their personal stories, share them in small peer groups and then learn basic skills of musical performance, choreography, and show-writing, collaborating to weave their collective experiences into a work of musical theater. Storycatchers has developed programs in partnership with two other Innovation 80 grantees--Ignition Community Glass and Green Star Movement--to further enrich the experiences of their Changing Voices youth.
West Point School of Music
West Point School of Music is a Black-led and Black-serving organization whose mission is to engage low-income, urban youth through music instruction and performance, cultivating artistically connected, socially conscious, and productive adults. Its performances make high quality, culturally diverse music accessible to all. Innovation 80 will fund the School’s steel drum program, which provides education and training, jobs and community development in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. The project includes its steel drum repair and manufacturing operation.
2020 Grantees
The Kedzie Center & 2nd Story
The Kedzie Center, in collaboration with 2nd Story, will create, and Innovation 80 will fund, the Diane Plotkin DACA Storytelling Program for three groups of students who identify as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in the River North area. Students will be offered opportunities to tell their personal stories in an empowering and healing way and to deliver them for impact. The program will foster inter-group sharing and will culminate in a performance of a number of pieces from each cohort, reaching at least 100 community members.
Reading Between the Lines
Reading Between the Lines uses discussion of literature to build critical thinking and communication skills with soon-to-be released and formerly incarcerated women and men. The exchange of ideas around short, powerful texts promotes confidence, collaboration, openness and trust, offering participants tools to engage with the world in new ways. Innovation 80 is funding activities that will prepare Reading Between the Lines to deliver their program inside the Cook County jail. This project has already received official approval from CCDOC.
Silk Road Rising
Silk Road Rising’s EPIC (Empathic Playwriting Intensive Course) program, has guided students in Chicago public schools in writing short plays that promote empathy around issues they see in their own communities. Innovation 80 is providing funding for Silk Road Rising to expand EPIC’s focus to guide other participants who are traditionally underserved to tell parts of their own stories. New target populations will be inter-generational groups, people with developmental or intellectual disabilities, and English language learners in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago.
SkyArt
SkyART, after 18 years of proven community engagement and youth development through free art programs in South Chicago, will begin to bring its program to young people on the West Side, aided by funding from Innovation 80. This year-long program for high school-aged young adults develops art as a pathway to their future. It offers a crucial bridge between high school and meaningful post-secondary educational and career opportunities, in an encouraging environment that promotes self-discovery, communication, and collaboration.